Death Is a Cabaret

by Deborah Morgan

  Jeff turned serious. “We’re lucky, you know. At least our wives appreciate what we do for a living. Some women don’t care whether the competition has two legs or four. Or none, for that matter. If they’re not the center of attention, then they’re jealous.”

  “Got someone in particular in mind?” Jeff raised a brow.

  “That obvious, huh?”

  “Only because I’ve heard that tone before.”

  Jeff leaned against the bead-board counter. “I’ve been thinking about Bill Rhodes. You missed our last fishing trip, so you haven’t met his young bride.” They’d be seeing Bill later that afternoon when they stopped at his bait shop for fishing supplies.

  “Bride? Hell, I’d about forgotten that he had one, let alone a young one. Robbed the cradle, did he?”

  “Looks that way. Which wouldn’t matter, if they seemed like a match. But this one acts like she’d scream bloody murder if a live fish got within fifty feet of her.”

  Sam raised his brows. “Yeah, well I bet she doesn’t bat an eyelash when she sees the bank deposits. That place is a gold mine.”

  Jeff nodded. Bill’s store, the Northwest Territory Bait and Tackle Shop, was a big success, thanks in no small part to Bill’s uncanny knack for predicting where the best catches could be made. It didn’t matter whether you were fishing for cutthroat, chinook, Dolly Varden, steelhead, coho, whatever your game, Bill Rhodes had your game plan.

  In addition, Bill had the state rules for his region memorized. With trout, it was easy and it rolled off Bill’s tongue like a tape recording: “Catch-and-release except up to two hatchery steelhead may be retained.” Then, he would add, “That’s year-round, of course.” Rules for salmon were trickier, but he had those committed to memory as well, right down to that tiny window of time during which you could actually keep a chinook.

  Sam swiped at a speck of dust on one of the chair’s arms. “Reckon she’ll try to keep Bill from playing poker? I’ve been counting on winning a new rod and reel from him this trip.”

  Jeff noted a touch of Sam’s native Southern drawl in his speech. It only happened when the transplanted Texan had had a few beers or was comfortable with the company. Jeff considered it a compliment, and enjoyed hearing an accent in his homogenized Washington. It was a fascinating combination of good-ole-boy and ebonics. “What do you need a new rod and reel for? Your Bamboo Bomber catches more than a dozen of those new combos would.” Jeff and Sam had nicknamed the bamboo rod, which had been a present from Sam’s mom to mark his thirteenth birthday, then gave it every possible chance to live up to the moniker during Sam’s stays with Washington relatives.

  “Now, that depends,” said Sam. “You can’t figure Gordy’s replacement into that. That kid might have the corner on beginner’s luck.”

  Gordy’s replacement, Jeff thought. Nobody could replace Gordon Easthope, especially someone half his age. Besides being one of the FBI’s top agents, Gordy was, by Jeff’s estimation, the best fisherman this side of the whaler Jonah. Gordy had been Jeff’s mentor, best friend, father figure, you name it, since their early days together with the Bureau. Contrary to workplace statistics, the two had remained tight after Jeff’s sudden departure from government work a half-dozen years before.

  “The Judge thinks this kid will be a natural, if he can take his enthusiasm down a notch or two.”

  “This kid,” as Sam kept calling him, was Kyle Meredith, a young attorney who’d been pestering Judge Richard Larrabee to include him in his monthly poker games. According to the Judge, Kyle had recently become hooked on fishing (so to speak) after watching A River Runs Through It, and the Judge decided to include him when Gordy had to cancel at the last minute.

  This, the Judge had said, would give Jeff and Sam the opportunity to get to know the young attorney and see what they thought about including him in the regular poker games.

  “So, what do you think?” Sam prompted. “Will Bill be in the games?”

  “Hard to say. He showed up last time, but watched the clock like a kid out on a school night.”

  “You see there?” Sam said. “Much as I love Helen, I’d never take her with us. A man just can’t be himself on a fishing trip if there’s women around.”

  Jeff investigated a mahogany table showcased near the chair Sam had restored.

  They were a remarkable match. “Hell, Sam, you’d better not let some women’s libber hear you.”

  “Too late.”

  Jeff looked up at the new speaker. Maura Carver walked in through a back door.

  She’d succeeded in sounding upset, but her smile gave her away. Her bronze skin and delicate features put Jeff in mind of the newly refinished chair.

  Maura gave Jeff a quick hug, then turned to her father with a loving but warning look.

  The warning appeared not to have registered. “See there, Jeff? Can’t even speak my mind without one or the other of my brood eavesdropping. You don’t know how lucky you are that Sheila can’t traipse along after you. Sometimes I wonder how the hell I’ve survived all these years with six women under foot.”

  “Dad.” Maura squeezed her father’s arm and looked at Jeff apologetically.

  “It’s okay, Maura,” he said. “That’s just your father’s way of apologizing for his good fortune. If I didn’t think he knew how damned lucky he is, I’d have decked him a long time ago.”

  “Damn, Jeff, she’s right. I didn’t mean anything against Sheila by it.” For a brief moment, Sam’s expression hinted at pure self-admonition. Then, without any indication of a shift in gears, he returned to a quasi-irritated state of being overrun by members of the opposite sex. “It’s just that our fishing trips are my only chance to get a break from all these women, and missing out on the last one has surely taken its toll.”

  “We’ll fix that in a few short hours,” said Jeff.

  His thoughts drifted to his own home life.

  Only a handful of people knew about his wife; fewer still knew that she was agoraphobic. The early stages of her illness had been present when they’d met. It hadn’t mattered to him then, and it didn’t now. In retrospect, however, he had to admit that the day-to-day challenges were different from what he’d imagined. But he was crazy in love with Sheila, and constantly surprised that so young and beautiful a woman had ever given him a second glance.

  Every relationship has something, he told himself. His wife’s terror of leaving the house was less traumatic than any number of other demons they might have had to face.

  “Jeff?” Maura touched his arm, bringing him back to the present.

  “Yes?”

  “Are you okay?”

  Jeff smiled. “I’m fine.” He nodded his head toward the table. “You’re tempting me with this, aren’t you? It’s a great match for the chairs.”

  “You’ve got a good eye, and good instincts. Someone has to market all the stuff that Dad takes on barter.”

  “I figured you were the driving force behind the success of this place.”

  Sam grimaced. “She’s plenty aware of that without you reminding her.”

  Jeff studied the table more closely. “Can you hold it for me till we get back Monday?”

  “Sure thing,” Maura said.

  Jeff checked his watch. “If I don’t get on the road to —”

  “Stop right there!” Sam clamped his hands over his daughter’s ears. “That fishin’ hole is the only secret I’ve got left from this brood of females, and I’ll be damned if you’re gonna take that from me.”

  “You’re right. A true angler doesn’t reveal the location.” He grabbed the doorknob. “Are you sure you don’t want to ride over with me? There’s plenty of room in the woodie for your gear.”

  “No can do,” Sam said. “I promised this one she could leave early today, since she’s gonna hold down the fort while I’m gone.”

  Maura smiled. “Sorry, Jeff, but I’m holding him to it. And if he doesn’t stop complaining, his brood will go to a NOW meeting instead of shopping.�
��

  Sam appeared to give this some serious thought. “Honestly, I don’t which would cost me more.”

  A victorious Maura disappeared through the back.

  Jeff told Sam he’d see him later at the cabin, then headed out the front door.

  The backseat of Jeff’s 1948 Chevy woodie was virtually always removed to make room for his antique finds. Today, the back was full of fishing gear, duffel bags, and lidded plastic bins of food.

  Most people Jeff’s age, it seemed, used their station wagons to haul children, beach toys, and soccer players, a noisy cargo. But Jeff’s passengers were always silent, and he wondered sometimes about what he was missing. He and Sheila had agreed not to have children. Sheila had worried that, if her condition never improved, she wouldn’t be able to attend school plays, sporting events, recitals. In the beginning, Jeff had argued with her about it, but as he watched her withdraw more and more from the world, he realized that she’d been right.

  Today, they’d parted on good terms, despite the fact that Jeff had felt guilty for leaving her. He hardly ever thought about it when he left every day for work, but to leave for a long weekend of fishing with his friends seemed selfish somehow. Sheila had assured him that she had more than enough to keep her busy.

  The cleaning crew would be in on Friday. Although Greer, the couple’s butler, was in charge, Sheila voiced her belief that as mistress of the mansion she had a certain responsibility to at least look like she was the person in charge. While Sheila relied heavily on Greer to run the household, Jeff had come to depend on the young butler’s comforting presence, which made it much easier for the picker to spend hours away from home in order to earn the money it took to keep everything running smoothly.

  Fortunately Jeff had inherited the home — although some would argue that inheriting the huge Victorian on Seattle’s Queen Anne Hill was bad fortune. Funds well beyond a typical mortgage payment were earmarked for the cleaning, maintenance, taxes, grounds upkeep, and a dozen other daily requirements of the fifteen-room monstrosity. But Jeff had grown up there and had been taught to care for the place as if it were a member of the family.

  Sheila’s weekend, as she’d laid it out to Jeff over breakfast that morning, would be busier than his own. She planned to experiment with some new recipes, make a little “shopping trip” to the personal antique store she had set up for herself on the third floor, and go antiquing at her favorite online auction houses.

  All this proved that, as usual, she seemed more adjusted to the situation than Jeff was.

  That was fine with him, less for him to be concerned about. He found this train of thought reassuring, and filed his concerns about leaving his wife comfortably in a mental drawer under “secured” so that he might turn his focus toward his driving.

  He headed toward the waterfront. On the way, he decided to stop by Blanche’s. He would have just enough time to get to the docks before the commuters started stacking up at the landings. Besides, he thought, he’d have plenty of time for reflection tomorrow morning on the river.

  CHAPTER TWO

  SPEAR FISHING: Attempting to take fish by impaling the fish on a shaft, arrow, or other device.

  —Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife

  Jeff parked the woodie, choosing a spot at the empty end of the large parking lot that paralleled Blanche’s antique shop, aptly called All Things Old. He’d recently had the car’s wooden finish revarnished and was more protective of it than usual.

  It felt odd, going into Blanche’s establishment empty-handed. Usually, he had something to sell to his favorite client, even if it was nothing more than a shoebox full of vintage hatpins for Isabelle’s, the segment of Blanche’s store that she’d lovingly named after her three-greats grandmother, and which showcased vintage clothing, shoes, gloves, parasols, chatelaines, dressing table accoutrements, crocodile handbags, and hundreds of hats. The massive collection represented every era in female fashion from the French courtesans to Rosie the Riveter.

  Jeff didn’t underestimate the value such a hatpin collection would represent. He’d learned a thing or two from Blanche, and one of them was that authentic hatpins were bringing a pretty penny nowadays. There were three kinds of fakes, near as he could recall: reproductions, which as the name implied, were replicas of period pieces; marriages, in which the head and the stem were joined; and fantasies, which weren’t like anything from period. But a shoebox full of bona fide antique hatpins had the potential of fetching three or four grand in today’s retail market — depending, of course, on the size of the shoes.

  He spied Blanche’s assistant, Trudy Blessing, talking with one of the cashiers behind the immense, L-shaped counter. As Jeff approached her, he knocked on the polished oak.

  She looked up and smiled. “Mr. Talbot, this is a surprise! Mrs. Appleby said you were leaving today for a fishing trip.”

  “Eventually.” Jeff had tried for quite a while to get the young woman to call him by his first name, but hadn’t succeeded.

  Finally, he’d realized that although Trudy was nearing thirty, her quiet demeanor (along with her glasses that made her look like a female Harry Potter) never would’ve allowed her to pull it off.

  Jeff cleared his throat. “Sorry to interrupt, ladies. Is Blanche in her office?”

  The women exchanged glances. Trudy said, “No, she’s out back at the loading dock. You’ll never believe what she just bought.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We’ve been sworn to secrecy. But I will give you a hint.” She produced a pith helmet from beneath the counter.

  “Whatever you say, Miss Blessing.” Jeff put on the helmet and both women laughed.

  He gave a proper British salute like Michael Caine in The Man Who Would Be King, then headed toward the back of the building.

  Blanche Appleby’s voice echoed in the rafters as Jeff approached the unfinished portion of the building. Blanche had been renovating the warehouse for almost ten years, ever since the death of her husband,

  George. She and George had owned three warehouses along Elliott Bay, and Blanche, not wanting to remain in the import/export business, had renovated the largest and turned it into an antiques mall to rival all antiques malls. She used another warehouse for storage and was currently toying with the idea of giving the Edgewater Inn a run for its money by converting the third warehouse into a posh hotel.

  Blanche was methodically calling out orders like an air-traffic controller. Curious, Jeff picked up his pace, turned the corner, and almost ran into the rough-skinned trunk of a taxidermied elephant.

  “Blanche?” Jeff shouted over the grunts and cursing of the movers, the squeaking of dolly wheels under the pachyderm’s feet (not a full-grown tusker, but rather a youngster the size of a Brahma bull), and the general pandemonium of another dozen men unloading crates from an eighteen-wheeler’s trailer. “Blanche, have you lost your mind?”

  “Jeffrey?” A tiny woman with coppery hair peeked from around the elephant’s trunk and grinned. “Isn’t he just adorable?” She patted the calf’s side as she walked toward Jeff. “I felt so sorry for the little guy that I couldn’t just turn him away.”

  “Turn him away? Blanche, it’s not a stray puppy.”

  “Where’s your sense of adventure, Jeffrey?”

  “I’m as adventurous as the next guy, but all of us combined don’t hold a candle to you.”

  “The timing was perfect. As you know, I’ve been working on this corner of the building. I predict that the safari craze is with us for a long time to come, so I bought out the inventory of a New England shop that’s going out of business because of the owner’s poor health.

  “Anyway, this section will be called Burton’s, in honor of the great adventurist, Sir Richard Burton.” She stood tall and proud, which brought her up to her full height of five feet.

  “That means you’ll have editions of the Kama Sutra in here then.”

  Her face turned as red as her hair. She slapped his ar
m playfully.

  “Anything in the collection that I’d be interested in?”

  “Have a look-see. There’s everything you might imagine: skin rugs — lions and tigers and bears —”

  “Oh, my.”

  Blanche continued obliviously. “There are trophy heads to display on the walls: lions, wildebeests, and giraffes, and there’s vintage stuff: leather trunks and cases, that great Campaign furniture that folds up chairs, beds, desks, tables in all sizes. Mark my word, Jeffrey, Campaign pieces are about to become very popular again, what with the state of this old world. You’ve seen how popular anything and everything patriotic has become, right?”

  Jeff nodded. There was no doubt that America as victim had profoundly stirred the patriotic emotions of everyone worthy of U.S. citizenship. Those who had allowed Jeff to go through old trunks and boxes in their garages and attics had quickly grabbed from him the Uncle Sam Wants You! posters, the military uniforms and the foot lockers that had once seen the shores of Normandy and the dust of San Juan Hill, the pennants and flags embroidered with fewer than fifty stars.

  All this, of course, had made prices skyrocket. Those things that were available in the antique shops and malls across the country were being snatched up in dizzying numbers, and the patriotism of buyers wasn’t discouraged by jacked-up prices.

  They simply dug deeper into their pockets and bought. And bought. And bought.

  Blanche went on. “The furniture will be next. People will want anything and everything that might allude to our country’s fights for independence. Which leads me to a question: Do you think your recently acquired loot has anything that will fit either my Burton Room, or the Americana Room?”

  Jeff grinned. He had worked out a barter plan with Blanche for the use of her warehouse; in return, she would get first pick of the treasures. “You’re calling in that marker pretty quickly, Blanche. I haven’t stored a single stick of furniture in your warehouse yet.” He retrieved a spiral-bound notepad from his jacket pocket and skimmed its contents.